How to Organise a Hybrid Live Stream Event — Case of the Estonian Architecture Awards 2020 & 2021.
During recent years, team members of Vita Pictura have gained more and more experience in various technical fields, allowing us to cover a bigger part of each production while still having our own trusted in-house team working on these productions.
A great example of our technical capabilities is the Estonian Architecture Awards, a prestigious yearly event with the aim of showcasing high-level architectural work in Estonia.
The 2020 Estonian Architecture Awards was the biggest production Vita Pictura had done at the time, delivering full technical production as well as conceptual part and entr’actes. The event took place in a hybrid format with around 100 people at the venue and ca. 400 people watching the live stream.
Happy with the work we did last year, the new organising team of Estonian Architecture Awards chose us to do the production for the 2021 event as well. Due to the covid situation at the end of 2021, the event finally took place on the 1st of February, 2022, in the new cruise terminal of Tallinn harbour.
It was for sure worth the wait as all the 300 people could physically attend, including nominees, partners, union members and related officials like the Minister of Culture Estonia Tiit Terik, and Alar Karis, the president of Estonia.
As the event also had to be streamed live, our team decided to develop camera-friendly lighting solutions. Contrary to far-spread and often cheaper solutions, we used quality fixtures from Arri, Astera and Aputure to light the stage, all soft enough not to cause harsh shadows, exposure clipping and colour shifts in the camera image.
The key light came from a huge softbox which we hung above the stage, fitting well into the minimalistic stage design — the approach was something not usually seen in event production, but it received very positive feedback from the architects, interior architects and landscape architects attending the event.
The event was streamed to YouTube, using six cameras directed by Sander Allikmäe and operated by Vita Pictura’s directors of photography. To keep the stream attractive, we added dynamic movement with a handheld camera, gimbal, and a 4-axis ropeCAM.
Parts of production done by Vita Pictura listed: live stream, stage and venue design, lighting design, building and rigging, LED-screen graphics and entr’acte clips production, artist arrangement, sound mixing. Equipment was provided by our great partners Radiustech, High Voltage, Skycam and Kaamerarent.
The 17-member production team of Estonian Architecture Awards 2021 was composed of 12 in-house employees of Vita Pictura and 5 freelance partners.
While video production will remain our main speciality, at times we are happy to offer production service and technical assistance to our partners in the event production industry and popularise the use of solutions that will look and sound great in both physical venues and live streams!
Watch the full live stream here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNZwSAjWoIE
Get to know more about this year’s nominees, laureates, and winners: https://arhitektuuripreemiad.ee
Written by Martin Raid, edited by Roman Pototski
